Half Of iPhone Users Never Sync, Update Their Phones

Nearly 50 percent of iPhone users who swap in their phone at Apple's Genius Bar have never synced their iPhone with iTunes after the initial setup.

The revelation was made by David Chartier, a former Mac World writer. He said that this lack of awareness amongst so many iPhone users on how to keep their devices updated, means that their devices remain in the same state as when unboxed, security vulnerabilities and all.

Choosing not to sync with iTunes also means that users do not get the small fixes that improve performance as Apple continues to develop the iOS platform, and Apple customers do not get any new features that have been released since they first bought their iPhone. Apparently this is the source of complaints from confused customers who don't understand why new features don't work on their iPhones.

Also, if these users don’t own MobileMe accounts, or accounts with other Web sync services, their bookmarks, contacts and calenders are only stored on their devices, without any back-up.

“I’m surprised to hear this number pegged so low at 50 percent (I assumed more users plugged into iTunes at least infrequently),” Mr. Chartier wrote on his blog.

“If true though, I find it interesting that it is still much lower than just about any statistic you will hear about how many traditional computers users backup.”